On the night of Tuesday 22nd November 05, Bob Tollervey, Ken Baker, Trevor Cannon, Ian Hargraves and I made for our observatory in Canterbury. It was a working /observing party to test out the Mintron camera through the 14 inch Schmidt Cassegrain. The image through the telescope can be recorded on video tape but was not on this occasion. Mars could be clearly seen on the TV monitor. The surface markings were best seen by reducing the image contrast. Syrtis Major was just disappearing off the western limb but Hellas; a white oval patch could still be seen. The most prominent dark markings were Sinus Meridiani and Pandorae Fretum stretching like two huge fingers roughly horizontally across the globe. The NPH was hinted at but I could not see the SPC on the monitor's image. This was at approximately 21h 25m. Ian recorded Mars image at the same time with his webcam. His pictures were in colour but they were of the same order of resolution to the Minton’s pictures.

Bob turned the telescope on to the Orion Nebula M42. We were hoping to see the nebulosity on the TV monitor. We made various adjustments including altering the contrast but for a long time we were only able to locate the trapezium. This tiny group of four stars between magnitude +5.0 and +8.0 are responsible for over 90 percent of the nebula's luminosity. We also located some other stars close by the trapezium. Only finally did we suspect a faint patch of gaseous luminosity.

Our last target was Saturn. Titan could be seen as a bright star like dot below the planet itself. As with Mars, the contrast needed reducing but with the planet being lower down and also less luminous than Mars, the disc detail was more elusive. Nevertheless we saw Cassini's division and the equatorial zone. I think I could just discern the SEB. It was now after midnight and we were getting cold and tired. It had been a good night and we had learnt a lot. The Mintron results were the best we have achieved yet.